SOUTH AMERICA. 



303 



rest as wild as the plains of the Missouri. Since the 

 revolution, the frontier has been considerably extended, 

 and this province, as well as the others of the union, 

 which have been exempt from the immediate devas- 

 tations of war, have had a considerable increase of in- 

 habitants. The city of Buenos Ayres, and its vicinity, 

 probably ten miles square, contains about seventy 

 thousand inhabitants; the villages of Luxan, Ense- 

 tiada. Las Conchas, and a few others, with their cir- 

 cumscribed vicinages, may contain from two to five 

 thousand, and as the whole population does not exceed 

 one hundred and five thousand, all the remainder of 

 the province is left for the rest, not exceeding fif- 

 teen or twenty thousand in number. Immediately 

 around the towns and villages, are thequintas of which 

 I have spoken, chiefly appropriated to the raising of 

 vegetables and fruits; next come the larger farms, or 

 chacras, where wheat, Indian corn, barley, &c. are 

 raised as with us; but according to a very different, 

 and as far as I can learn, a very inferior system of 

 agriculture. These have not the same aversion to 

 neighborhood, as the old Virginia planter, who de- 

 clared, he never would wish to live so near as to hear 

 the barking of his neighbors' dogs. The mode of 

 cultivating the earth, of enclosing their grounds, and 

 their rural economy in general, would furnish many 

 curious topics; but these I must wave for the present. 

 The soil is, undoubtedly, the finest in the world; but 

 they labor under great disadvantages from a defi- 

 ciency of water, as the streams, which are not nume^ 

 rous, are apt to go dry in summer. They are therefore 

 compelled to make reservoirs for the reception of rain 

 water, when at too great a distance from the river. 



